Vittorio Gassman
This brisk, engaging documentary surveys the life, work, and legacy of Vittorio Gassman, the Italian screen icon who began his illustrious career as a serious dramatic stage actor before going on to subvert that image in classic works of commedia all’italiana by Mario Monicelli (Big Deal on Madonna Street), Dino Risi (Il Sorpasso), and Ettore Scola (We All Loved Each Other So Much). Through a wealth of interviews, film clips, and archival footage, Sono Gassman! reveals how Gassman’s comedic screen persona cannily reflected and critiqued mid-20th-century Italian society, while shedding light on the complex inner life of the man himself.
An evening at an Italian restaurant. Hosted by tolerant and relaxed Flora, various parties of middle-class people come in -- large and small, young and old, regulars and tourists, married and single -- to dine, converse, argue, celebrate, make confessions; to overhear other people's discussions, to interrupt them, to sing, listen to music, and enjoy life. The camera, just like the people, moves constantly from table to table, into the kitchen and the back room to observe the staff's petty jealousies and frustrations -- until two hours later it's time for everybody to go home.
In 1939, Ramon (Jacques Penot) was a young man, caught up in his Barcelona family's involvement on the Republic side in the brutal Spanish Civil War. He and his family fled into exile ahead of Franco's troops. Now it is many years later, and he has come back to see how his old homestead fared in the intervening years. The only person he can find who is able to remember those years clearly is his family's old butler Claudio (Vittorio Gassman). This film is a sequel to the 1975 film by director Jaime Camino, Largas Vacaciones del 36.
Sheherazade has been married to a ruler who wants many wives, but only one at a time. Consequently, as soon as he has bedded them, he has them put to death. In most retellings, the girl staves off this unfortunate conclusion by putting off the connubial event for a thousand and one nights, telling irresistible stories instead. In this one, she gets hold of a magic lamp.
Carmine Bonavia wins election as the mayor of New York on a promise to legalize drugs. After the election, he marries Carrie and goes to his ancestral home of Sicily for their honeymoon. In his hotel, he meets Il Principe, a Sicilian prince who has spent years confined to the hotel because he crossed the Mafia. Amid the beauties of Sicily Carmine discovers that men of power will stop at nothing to prevent the legalization of drugs, which threatens their business.
Italian-French costume dramedy that takes place in France in the end of 18th Century during the French Revolution. It is "The Marriage of Figaro" meets "The Dangerous Liaisons" and it tells the story of two women, Mathilde Seurat, the actress and Julie Renard, the aristocratic wife and a mother (Delphine Forest plays both) with the same face who came from the different parts of society and at one point exchanged their identities and their lives. The movie also features Giancarlo Giannini and great Vittorio Gassman.
After eighteen years of psychiatric care, the former bank manager Augusto Scrivani returns home from his daughter-in-law Carla ... Dino Risi directs a melancholy and scratchy Gassman.
"The Family," an album with a velvet cover, is meant to touch the extended family of man. Formal portraits, bookends in this 80-year saga, enclose the central story, which opens with the baptism of Carlo, a baby in his grandfather's lap, and ends with Carlo as a grandfather with a baby in his arms. And never once do we get out of the house, whose rooms provide the film's structure. Comfort or passion? Carlo couldn't really decide until it was too late.
Fresh out prison, Tiberio reconnects with his old partners in crime, Michele Ferribote and Peppe the Panther, only to realise that a lot has changed--including crime--after twenty years. Can he cope with this new reality?
In this whimsical fable, Resnais deftly interweaves three story lines: the creation of an early-20th-century utopia; romantic high jinks at a school conference; and a fantasy sparked by F/X pioneer Georges Méliès.
A passionate affair set against the intense encounter between a film-maker and a novelist. The story begins with young scriptwriter François tracking down the author of a once-scandalous novel. His aim is to adapt the work for the screen but several elements of the novel he finds difficult to comprehend. The author, Jeanne, is initially cautious of relaying information, insisting the presumably autobiographical book in no way relates to her personal life. However, eventually she takes the man into confidence to tell the background of Benvenuta.
In 1900 in Rome, the poor carpenter Francesco, by a twist of fate, is recognized component of a noble family in the process of decay. Francesco knows the cynical and ruthless Prince Torquato Terenzi, disappointed by life and progress, and also falls in love with the beautiful Duchess Elisa. When Prince Terenzi dies, Francesco realizes that he's not enriched for nothing with the inheritance, because the noble family is broke; so he enlistes himself for the war in Libya, but quickly returnes to Italy, disgusted by the atrocities of the fighting. His dream is to be a singer, and so he goes to America with the Duchess Elisa.
A sobering mid-life crisis fuels dissatisfaction in Philip Dimitrius, to the extent where the successful architect trades his marriage and career in for a spiritual exile on a remote Greek island where he hopes to conjure meaning into his life - trying the patience of his new girlfriend and angst-ridden teenage daughter.
A couple of young movie makers have secretly filmed for over a year what was going on in a hotel room, trying to realize a "live act" of common people living their life. They get in touch with old and money-tight producer Mengaroni to edit their movie, but while they contact the accidental actors for gathering authorization, he starts to manipulate their work.
Police officer Tom Sharky gets busted back to working vice, where he happens upon a scandalous conspiracy involving a local politician. Sharky's new 'machine' gathers evidence while Sharky falls in love with a woman he has never met.
Antonio Barozzi moves from Lago Maggiore to Rome to become an actor. He does not realize his agent and acting coach are only manipulating him to further their own careers.
When KAOS develops a bomb that can dissolve all clothing, Maxwell Smart is brought in to foil the evil plot.
Drama about the difficulties of a group of people trying to change their lives. A group of people gathers in a terrace in Rome . Some are friends, some know each other and others just meet for the first time. All are intellectual and belong to the middle class.
In Caro papá, Dino Risi is telling the story of the decadent lifestyle, and dysfunctional family, of a wealthy businessman (played to perfection by Risi's favorite leading man, Vittorio Gassman). Risi paints his portrait against a backdrop of an Italy where the new permissiveness has run rampant, traditional socio-cultural values have been usurped by consumerism, and the streets have become an open battleground for politically extremist groups (the '70s were dubbed "The Years of Lead" due to the great number of terrorist acts, and politically motivated assassinations).
Two minstrels singing for their supper in Rome discover they've both been lovers to the same woman, and one of them is the father of her infant son; a privilege neither is willing to concede.
Muffin's wedding to Dino Corelli is to be a big affair. Except the ageing priest isn't too sure of the ceremony, only the families actually turn up as the Corelli Italian connection is suspect, security guards watch the gifts rather over-zealously, and Dino's grandma expires in bed just as the reception starts. Could be quite an occasion.
15 years after the monumental "I mostri" which was a great example of Italian sketch comedy, 3 of the greatest Italian directors ever (Risi, Monicelli, Scola) the best Italian writers ever (Age, Scarpelli) the best Italian actors ever (Tognazzi, Gassmann, Sordi) one of the most beautiful woman in the world (Ornella Muti) participate to this great tribute.
Lieutenant Giovanni Drogo is assigned to the old Bastiani border fortress where he expects an imminent attack by nomadic fearsome Tartars.
An episodic satire of the political and social status of Italy in the seventies, through the shows of one day of a television channel. An English language lesson turns into a killing of a black dignitary of an embassy by a CIA agent and then into his own killing by another colleague. In a television film, the police are befooled by a fake bomb and put a real one in order not to be derided by the public. In a film inquisition show, the bishop of Naples speaks highly of the importance of the family, but a child who lives a miserable family life kills himself. In the debate that follows it is proposed that they should eat the children, as Swift had said. In the next episode, a general who is in the toilet is called for the NATO parade, but the flasher breaks and in his effort to fix it, he dirts allover and kills himself. In a children's show an inspector finds excuses and delays the arrest of a powerful man...
Anthony M. Wilson is an English gentleman. He has a string of restaurants in London plus a beautiful house decorated with all the trendy art he can get.
This homage to Italy’s “White Telephone” films (sophisticated comedy-dramas revolving around working-class girls) of the 1930s gives Agostina Belli her best role – going from chambermaid to prostitute to singer to film-star to mistress of ‘Il Duce’! – for which she received a special David Di Donatello award, the Italian equivalent of the Oscar. Incidentally, the English title evokes memories of Octave Mirbeau’s ‘scandalous’ novel “Diary Of A Chambermaid” – thrice brought to the screen (in Hollywood in 1946 by Frenchman Jean Renoir, in France in 1964 by Spaniard Luis Bunuel and in 1974, typically as a sexploitationer, by prolific “Euro-Cult” exponent Jess Franco: the latter being the only one I haven’t watched and don’t own in any form). At other points in the narrative, the film also reminded me of A STAR IS BORN (itself filmed several times) and BELLE DE JOUR (1967), Bunuel’s celebrated classy treatment of prostitution…
Tina is on trial for the murder of her lover, Gino. The violent nature of their relationship, revealed in the trial, seems to make obvious that she accidentally killed him during a fight. The lone female jury member compares her life to Tina's and, believing her to be innocent, sets out on her own to find a missing witness that can prove Tina's innocence.
During his preparation for his film on Casanova Fellini asks a number of renowned actors to give him their view on the character of Casanova.
Gianni, Nicola and Antonio become close friends in 1944 while fighting the Nazis. After the end of the war, full of illusions, they settle down. The movie is a the story of the life of these three idealists and how they deal with the inevitable disillusionments of life.
An army cadet accompanies an irascible, blind captain on a week-long trip from Turin to Naples.
To the St. Andrew's Church in Rome comes a fugitive - Cesare Angelotti, former consul, who was sentenced to death for taking a part in a conspiracy against tyranny that rules the country. In further escape helps him his friend, young painter Mario Cavaradossi. A bit later the chief policeman Scarpia reaches the church. He notices the similarity between the portrait of Maria Magdalena, Cavaradossi has been working on, and Rome countess named Attavanti. Scarpia shows these details to Cavaradossi's beloved - singer Tosca, what makes her jealous. Tosca gets to Cavaradossi's house with Scarpia's men. Chief of the police believes he will find the prisoner there, and... seduce Tosca he fell in love long before.
Caustic satire on bureaucracy of the Vatican authority and a simple Italian who wants to achieve the audience with the Pope.
In the beginning of the 20th. century Italian actor Guido Guidi, more enthusiastic than talented, and his ensemble tour Texas. The mysterious and obviously rich Peppino Garibaldi gives them an offer, they can’t deny: For a large amount of dough they should play “Richard III.” in the Mexican town Vera Cruz. But Peppino is not really interested in cultural affairs: He supports “La Revolución” and “General” Carasco, who utilizes the feastful premiere of “Richard III.” to raid Vera Cruz for Comandante Zapata. But shortly after the Mexican Army shows up with some canons in tow to sort things out. Guidi and Padre Albino, Italian like him, succeed to flee and save Carasco accidentially from the firing squad. Whereas the latter coninues his revolutionary fight, Guidi and Albino start an odyssey through the struggling Mexico, which lets them fall one time in the hands of Carasco the other time in those of Herrera or even in the clutches of “hand-taking” bandidos.
Released from the orphanage at the age of thirty, a man dreams of finding his mother.
An obscure Italian magistrate suspects that a well-known industrialist commited murder, and decides to investigate him, and bring him to court, whatever it takes. But - will the magistrate have it in him to go against impossible odds, in the name of the Italian people he represents?
Years after the Second Punic War, Scipio Africanus finds himself generally unliked, despite his defeat of Hannibal Barca. He and his brother, Scipio Asiaticus, are accused by Marcus Porcius Cato of the theft of 500 talents intended for Rome.
Middle-aged man (Vittorio Gassman) leaves his wife to devote himself to a carefree life.
After saving an infant of royal blood, knight Brancaleone forms a new army and sets out to return the baby to his father: a prince fighting in the Crusades.
Mario, a young philanderer, receives 13 antique chairs in a bad state by inheritance and decides to sell off them to get some money. Afterwards he gets to know that one of them contains documents worth a lot of money. So he begins an adventurous trip to regain possession of the chair. On the way he meets many strange people who would like to help or to swindle him.
Young bank employee is very surprised by his bride behavior...
Episode film about identical twin brothers. Mario is an honest government-minded deputy. Filippo lives by his wits, not quite legally. Eventually Filippo ruins his brother's career and mind, absorbs his wife and finally steps into his shoes as an honorable member of Parliament.
In this comedy, a guru’s groupie plans to seduce him so she can number him among her many conquests.
Comedy-drama about a middle-aged Italian businessman Vittorio Gassman who is married to Eleanor Parker and is innocently introduced one day to a schoolgirl with pigtails named Carolina. Years later, that young schoolgirl has become a vivacious young woman (Ann-Margret), and she pursues him, luring him into an on-again-off-again romantic tryst where she pulls the strings and holds all the cards.
Pasquale and Maria, husband and wife, live in a palace supposedly haunted by ghosts and pay no rent. When Pasquale finds some food in the cupboard he thinks the ghosts are at work.
Bob is a successful actor, but his career gets doomed by a strange phenomenon: the animal kingdom is taking on him!
A group of rogues steal a scroll granting its bearer the property of the land of Aurocastro in Apulia (south of Italy). They elect a shaggy knight, Brancaleone from Norcia, as their leader, and decide to get possession of this supposedly wealthy land. Many adventures will occurr during the journey.
Two devils from Hell are sent to Earth to cause trouble. Belfagor and his faithful sidekick Adramalek must start a war between Rome and Florence in 1478.
Lucio (Vittorio Gassman) and his sidekick (Adolfo Celi) accidently gets mixed up with a gang of international counterfeiters in this fast-moving and suspenseful comedy with music from Ennio Morricone. The crooks hope to upset the U.S. economy by flooding the world with bogus bills. Lucio is an overworked businessman who only wants a little rest and relaxation. Instead, he is skiing in Northern Italy on one day and the next day enduring the searing heat in the Egyptian desert.
Don Giuliano Niccolini Borges, Roman prince and member of the Pontifical Noble Guard, is very much attracted to Jane, an English girl he has met that is accompanying him on a pleasure trip to Switzerland. He has some plans for hanky-panky on their various stops along the route, but Jane has other plans as she is only with him because his car has a special-identification license plate and can go through customs without inspection. The car clears customs as does the stolen million dollars she is smuggling. Sandro, her former boyfriend is following and plans to hi-jack the loot, leaving Jane empty handed.
A U.S. intelligence general (Robert Ryan) recalls three Cold War cases of Soviet (Henry Fonda), French and Italian (Vittorio Gassman) spies.
Vittorio Gassman stars as different characters in each of the nine episodes of this unusual Italian comedy. Playing everything from a practical joker to a prisoner, he comments upon romance, love and women in general.
Two young men in a village in Sicily raping a girl. In the end, two skilled lawyers will succeed in getting them to complete the trial, but one, who in the meantime has fallen in love with the victim.
March on Rome (Italian: La marcia su Roma) is a 1962 comedy film by Dino Risi with Vittorio Gassman and Ugo Tognazzi, aimed at describing the March on Rome of Benito Mussolini's black shirts from the point of view of two newly recruited, naïve black shirts
A journalist could marry the daughter of a tycoon, but prefers a relationship with a married woman. An attorney renounces her lover by greed. A soldier tries to approach a widow on a train. A German couple looking for adventure mistakingly aim for the wrong target, yet find love.
Roberto, a shy law student in Rome, meets Bruno, a forty-year-old exuberant, capricious man, who takes him for a drive through the Roman and Tuscany countries in the summer. Along the way, they end up knowing each other and entering each other's lives. A twist at the end puts everything into perspective.
Epic account of the thief Barabbas, who was spared crucifixion when Pilate manipulated the crowd into pardoning him, rather than Jesus. Struggling with his spirituality, Barabbas goes through many ordeals leading him to the gladiatorial arena, where he tries to win his freedom and confront his inner demons, ultimately becoming a follower of the man who was crucified in his place.
An old prince (Eduardo De Filippo) lives in his ancient palace in Rome together with the ghosts of his ancestors; he proudly rejects a huge offer for the palace by a real estate group seeking a place to build a department store; but the prince suddenly dies (and joins the ghosts!) and his nephew (Marcello Mastroianni), just back from the States, sells the palace for a much lesser price. The old palace seems lost but here come the ghosts which manage to create a Caravaggio-like painting in the palace, which is so declared national monument and saved from destruction. A little satirical masterpiece about real estate speculation in 1950s Italy. And a great cast with the best Italian actors of the time: Eduardo, Buazzelli, Gassman and Mastroianni playing three characters.
Silvio Magnozzi is a man so dedicated to his high moral standards that he loses out on most of the things he wants in life -including his wife. He watches while others march up the ladder of success way ahead of him, sometimes by hypocritically licking the boots of their superiors or doing just anything at all to attain advancement. After his death grip on his principles causes his wife to walk out, Silvio relents and starts to live like others. Now he is supposedly happily residing on Easy Street, his wife is back -- and so what is bugging him? (AllMovie)
The Last Judgement (Italian: Il giudizio universale) is a 1961 commedia all'italiana film by Italian director Vittorio De Sica. It was coproduced with France. It has an all-star Italian and international cast, including Americans Jack Palance, Ernest Borgnine; Greek Melina Mercouri and French Fernandel, Anouk Aimée and Lino Ventura. The film was a huge flop, massacred by critics and audiences when it was released. It was filmed in black and white, but the last sequence, the dance at theatre, is in color.
Based on the events from the Italian civil war. In 1860's, a member of a guerrilla force captures a colonel from the opposing army and later leads one of the sides to victory.
Gerardo, an aspiring actor, trying unsuccessfully to cross over from comedy to tragedy, is involved, due to his ability to mimic dialects of Italy, in a scam concocted by Lallo against a rich cloth-merchant.
The usual gang of robbers in engaged by a thief from Milan to steal a suitcase full of money, but troubles will menace the success of the operation.
Italy, 1916. Oreste Jacovacci and Giovanni Busacca are called, as all the Italian youths, to serve the army in the WWI. They both try in every way to avoid serving the army.
A novice leaves a Spanish convent to follow a 19th-century British soldier she loves.
A Texas girl wins a trip to Italy where she meets a prince who's afraid to admit that he's flat broke (so is she). They strike up an affair, but things come to a crazy conclusion when he tries to bribe a horse to win a race at the Palio racing grounds.
A young officer in the army of Empress Catherine of Russia is on his way to his new duty station at a remote outpost. During a blinding snowstorm he comes upon a stranger who was caught in the storm and is near death from freezing. He rescues the man and eventually brings him back to health. When the man is well enough to travel, the two part company and the man vows to repay the officer for saving his life. Soon after he arrives at his new post, a revolt by the local Cossacks breaks out and the fort is besieged by the rebels. The young officer is astonished to find out that the leader of the rebellious Cossacks is none other than the stranger whose life he had saved during the storm.
Best friends Peppe and Mario are thieves, but they're not very good at it. Still, Peppe thinks that he's finally devised a master heist that will make them rich. With the help of some fellow criminals, he plans to dig a tunnel from a rented apartment to the pawnshop next door, where they can rob the safe. But his plan is far from foolproof, and the fact that no one in the group has any experience digging tunnels proves to be the least of their problems.
England, first half of the 19th century. Edmund Kean is a celebrated theatre actor, notorious for his tumultuous private life. He is in love with the beautiful countess Koefeld, wife of the Danish ambassador, to the consternation of his friend, the Prince of Wales. He is also hounded by Anna Damby, who wants to become an actress to escape a marriage to Lord Mewill.
As part of a story, a reporter goes to meet Elisa, a young woman he met a few years ago on a trial on which she was finally exonerated.
Napoleon's tumultuous relations with Russia including his disastrous 1812 invasion serve as the backdrop for the tangled personal lives of two aristocratic families.
The fictitious story of a real person called Lina Cavalieri who was known at the time as "the most beautiful woman in the world".
Silvana Mangano (a very lovely & sexy voiced actress) plays a young, poor Venetian woman, Giovanna Masetti. She is struggling with an difficult life as a shop assistant when one day a young count Enrico sees her in the glass shop where she works. She gets invited to the masquerade ball (ah - if they would have parties like this now - oh wow) with the help of her unscrupulous boyfriend Mario's dirty deal with the count - the glorious evening does not turn out well, not at all. One bright moment to this disastrous evening is Giovanna's meeting up with a troupe of MAMBO dancers in particular the troupe leader, Toni Salerno (Shelley Winters).
A rich, young beauty, Louise Durant, follows the man she loves and hopes to marry to Zurich where he studies violin at the conservatory. A piano student at the conservatory falls madly in love with Louise. The violinist loves his music first and Louise second. The pianist loves Louise first and his music second. Louise must ultimately choose which man she wants.
Peter Kaban, a Hungarian refugee, is about to be deported after jumping ship in New York harbor. He needs to find an ex-G.I named Tom whom he helped during the war, as Tom.can prove Peter's right to legal entry iof the United States. It is a race against the clock! If he can't find Tom within 24 hours and prove his case, he will be branded a fugitive and will be permanently disqualified for U.S. citizenship.
A police officer meets a girl who is near to falling into the net of shady individuals. To prevent this, he invites her into the police station and tells her a story.
A businessman is wrongly accused and convicted for the murder of his associate.
A woman suffers from amnesia after killing her husband, who was just about to demand a divorce for having found her engaging in an affair with a lover, who is only interested in her to find where some precious jewels are hidden.
Anna is a 1951 Italian drama film directed by Alberto Lattuada and starring the same trio as Bitter Rice: Silvana Mangano as Anna, the sinner who becomes a nun; Raf Vallone as Andrea, the rich man who loves her; and Vittorio Gassman as Vittorio, the wicked waiter who sets Anna on a dangerous path. Silvana Mangano's real sister, Patrizia Mangano, acts as Anna's sister on the film. Sophia Loren has got a small uncredited role as a nightclub assistant. Future film directors Franco Brusati and Dino Risi cowrote the script. [Wikipedia]
Francesca and Walter are two-bit criminals in Northern Italy, and, in an effort to avoid the police, Francesca joins a group of women rice workers. She meets the voluptuous peasant rice worker, Silvana, and the soon-to-be-discharged soldier, Marco. Walter follows her to the rice fields, and the four characters become involved in a complex plot involving robbery, love, and murder.
Returning home after a night of love spent in a woodman's hut with Orsola, Pietro is arrested by the police for a crime he did not commit. His mother and youngest sister, Rosaria, go to Orsola begging her to provide Pietro with the alibi that will clear him. But Rocco, Orsola's brother, dreading a family scandal, constrains Orsola to silence. Condemned despite his innocence, Pietro escapes from prison, but the police track him down and kill him, and his mother, before the eyes of Rosaria. Years pass, and one day Rocco stumbles upon a half-frozen young woman lying in the snow. He takes her home and confides her to the care of Orsola. Later, yielding to the pleas of Orsola, Rocco and Rocco's son, Salvatore, the girl stays on in the house, and Salvatore falls in love with the beautiful stranger, who is careful to keep the family members from learning she is Rosaria, the grown up sister of Pietro seeking revenge for the deaths of her brother and mother.
Giacomo Casanova returns to Venice, to help his brother, falsely accused of robbery.
This is an Italian live action film with Alessandro Tomei as Pinocchio.
